When twenty-three-year-old Tom Allen and his friends set off from their English village to cycle around the world, they were expecting physical hardship, extreme conditions and a serious case of culture shock. But the hours spent poring over maps could never have prepared them for the experience of life on the road: the petty squabbles, the extreme hospitality, the unexpected joys and dangers.

And then Tom meets Tenny, a feisty Iranian-Armenian girl with dreams of her own, and hits a crossroad. Should he give up his grand plan for the girl he loves, or cycle off and risk missing out on the greatest adventure of them all?

My first book, Janapar: Love, on a Bike, was crowdfunded and self-published in 2013. It goes much further than recounting the nuts and bolts of a long bicycle journey, exploring what it means to be a modern-day journeymaker, the challenges and tough sacrifices one must make in order to follow a dream, and the series of realisations that must befall the young and naive traveller about life and love.